Seeing stars!

It's been a fun but fairly uneventful few weeks with the odd exception.  It was Paul's birthday a couple of weeks ago and we had a lovely day at Leftos Yialos starting the day with a bottle of bubbly and ending it in a similar fashion with champagne cocktails on the roof terrace with Karen and a couple of her friends, Maggie and Keith. We then had the best meal of the summer so far at the Ostria taverna.

A couple of days later we awoke to the sounds of drilling. On further investigation a couple of workmen were busy attempting to fill in a pothole that had appeared due to some heavy rain.  They had obviously drilled somewhere they shouldn't as the first pothole was now joined by another hole that was spewing water from the mains pipe!!! Several hours ensued of the men trying to bail out the hole with plastic bottles and a couple of old chaps looking on and giving their suggestions at various intervals :)  One of the old guys decided to join in and started digging with a pick axe whilst the two workmen had a cigarette and looked on....it was definitely a case of "how many men does it take to....."

Men at work

Later that week we had an unexpected request from a friend who needed to return to the UK for a week due to a family bereavement.  She has a lovely dog, Ed, who needed looking after while she was away and would we consider doing so at her house.  We were more than happy to say yes and doubly so when various friends said 'ooh, lucky things' when we mentioned it.  As it turns out the villa sits on the hillside at Steni Vala overlooking the ocean and is absolutely gorgeous so this is where we have been ensconced for the past week....eating apricots straight from the tree and getting all over tans on the roof terrace or the little beach below the house (which we discovered was the local nudist beach on our first visit... so, when in Rome :))   It's not going to be easy going back to the studio in Patitiri after the peace and quiet of Steni Vala!

The villa from the beach

view from the lower terrace

View from the master bedroom



Ed

Now to the reasons for the title of the post.....I've seen stars 3 times in the past week. The first time was when I managed, god knows how, to bash my forehead on the sink in the bathroom.  The second was at the villa when I forgot to stayed stooped coming up the stairs and stood up under the windows that open inwards....crack, right on top of my head :( The third time was actually rather beautiful.  We were sat on the terrace with a glass of wine, watching the geckos that come out when it gets dark, when I suddenly spotted a shooting star flashing across the sky.....it was such an amazing sight it brought a tear to my eye.  A great way to end the day.

The Alonissos Challenge 2015

This is an annual event and this year saw the 10th anniversary. Paul was registered for the 15k walk and I got roped in to direct traffic and runners/walkers in the middle of the road at the Votsi junction so the alarm was set for 6.30am, hence the early exit from the previous evenings festivities. The 30k runners started their challenge at 8am and were followed by everyone else at 8.30.  The weather stayed fine and dry which was a relief as last year I ended up looking like a drowned rat and my trousers apparently were completely see through!
The winner of the 30k finished in around 1hr, which considering the terrain which was road, dirt tracks and stone/shingle paths including flights of steps, was rather amazing!  We later discovered that he had kayaked from the mainland, a distance of approx. 25 miles, that morning. He than ran the marathon and kayaked back to the mainland.....Iron Man or what!!

Turn right at the second cactus on the right and down over the wall!!

 

Paul came a very creditable 5th place in his first challenge managing 15k in 2hrs and 37 mins.  As he'd stopped to have a chat at my station for a few mins and didn't set off particularly quickly he was surprised to then be overtaking most of the field up the hills and vows to "go for it" next time!!

 

Ed the dog with some of the walkers

Paul receiving his medal

A flotilla of Doctors

We were lounging on a sunbed by the pool at the Yalis hotel when we started seeing lots of little boats coming across the water towards the port.  They all stopped for a while to let the stragglers catch up and once they were all together, they set off in a nice straight line heading towards Patitiri.  There were about 30 boats and we were rather confused at first as to what was going on.  We came to the conclusion it was the arrival of the infamous Doctors that we'd been hearing about for the past few days.  Apparently every year a group of top doctors in their field go to the smaller greek islands for an 'open house' appointment system to check on the health of the residents ....and this year, Alonissos was the lucky island.  All the appointments were quickly booked and by the queues at the medical centre and the gym, they were kept rather busy.  The pay off for this was arrival by boat to music, coloured flares and general speeches etc to welcome them.  Saturday night then saw a meal for 200 (although there were only 50 doctors!!) on the waterfront of Patitiri followed by dancing by the local group and two expats. This went on long into the night as musicians then played and other dances took place.  Unfortunately a lot of us left rather earlier than we would have liked to as the following morning the Alonissos Challenge was due to take place with 10k & 15k walks and a 30k run.

Snakes alive! (but not for long!) & Kitten update

We've been exploring lots of the island on foot lately and have come across a couple of snakes, unfortunately both rather squished!  Paul had said that he'd like to see a live one and lo and behold, a few days later he got his wish.  Rather unexpectedly we came across a perfectly harmless grass snake (or something similar) going up the gulley at the side of the steps from the beach at Roussoum.  Being the tourists that we are, out came the mobile phone and the camera for some pictures.  Unfortunately this drew the attention of a couple of local men who promptly disappeared into their homes and came out brandishing a spade!  By this time, despite our best efforts to herd it back down to the shrub at the back of the beach, it had gone across the path and was in someone's courtyard.  With a shout of "It's dangerous" the man with the spade brought it down to chop the snake in half!  I said "no it's not" and put my nice white lacy parasol in front of his spade, just as the snake slid into the drainpipe at the front of the apartments....oops!  We were not popular, got some filthy looks as he shouted for the owner of the apartment.  Needless to say we beat a hasty retreat. So, sorry to the apartment owner for probably having to disconnect his pipes and sorry to the snake for drawing attention to it and leading to it's probable demise......

 

The kitten we rescued from the crow is doing very well and apparently hasn't stopped bellowing since we brought him!  Luckily the mum seems very placid (and is probably now deaf) and doesn't seem to mind.  We were asked to give him a name and after thinking for a while came up with Chaos, Marble (due to his colouring) or Harley, as in Harley Davidson motorcycles which are rather noisy (and being a fan of said bike).  We all decided on Harley so he now has a name to call when being told to SHUT UP!